Ping: Why Bother?

Ping would have been a great thing for Apple to have done about 3-4 years ago, but at this point, the Social Networking thing has pretty much played itself out, picked its winners, and we’ve all moved on. Apple went to all the trouble to make a deal with a golf company, and all we got was a third rate social network? First of all, in what is probably just a temporary setback, Ping is choked with spam, but more importantly, it’s just a sucky social network.I can’t really sum it up better than a blogger named Swizec, who pretty much rips Ping apart in a post today. Even Ping’s ace in the hole, that is has access to all the information about music listening habits from every iTunes users, seems to have been botched. Instead of broadcasting to the world what music you, you know, actually like best and listen to, it only tells people what you bought or rated at the iTunes store.

Of course, being a new social network, Ping is suffering from ghost town syndrome. One of my OSNews colleagues posted on Facebook that he couldn’t find anyone to follow on Ping. (Keep waiting, dude!) Swizec notices that while he can “follow” Lady Gaga, who he doesn’t like, none of the bands he actually does like are on Ping yet. And they never will be, because in two weeks everyone will have forgotten that Ping ever existed. It will be like that Quicktime desktop app or Safari for Windows that Apple installed on your computer when you activated your iPod: something you vaguely remember as having hitched a ride with iTunes.

I’m actually a big Apple fan, but I consider myself pretty immune to the RDF. If anything, my fondness for Apple makes me feel bad about Ping and all the talented people who wasted their time building it.

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30 Comments

There are some people who get really excited about little things (global warming, religion, politics, heat death of the universe, etc.) and they obviously need to get a life.

But I think I speak for everyone when I say we get upset about real things like misused apostrophes. When we see things like “…picked it’s winners…” we want to start internet-wide petitions to have offending web sites taken down before they corrupt the young.

And to think I’m a grammar and usage geek who gets physically sick when someone else uses the wrong its or a grocer’s apostrophe. Proofreading, people! This has been a public service announcement. And knowing is half the battle.

I think that Ping is going to be one of many social sites built around an existing service. And why not? Google built Buzz around Gmail, Apple uses iTunes, Microsoft has Xbox Live, all of these are really just social networks. Your issue seems to be two things, the amount of users at launch and its integration into other existing social networks.

First, the whole ‘social network thing’ was dominated by MySpace only a few years ago and look at them today. The space is not and will never be settled just like the OS space, the hardware space, the phone space is not settled even though there are a few dominant players.

Apple and Google and probably Microsoft (if they can get their act together) are all aiming at Facebook. In gaming, in music, and anything else they can think of.

Second, if you think Ping is about music your kidding yourself. Music is Apple’s foray into the space. They will learn from it and extend further, merge Ping with Game Center, Photo’s and whatever else.

I would also point out that Facebook is a website-based social network, therefore OS-agnostic, and open to all.

Ping is an iTunes-based social networking, therefore limited to iTunes users (on compatible OS only) and therefore Ping userbase is by essence a subset of its iTunes userbase. As a non user of iTunes, I cannot join Ping even if I wanted to.

Indeed I put Ping in the same fold as Buzz and Xbox live, niche social networking unable to ever grow as they are tied to a limited userbase (Xbox owner, gmail user, etc…).

Just seems like Ping is really just user submitted advertising. Probably aimed at that younger generation with time and their parent’s money to burn. Seems like a genius way for Apple to separate the buck from your wallet. Songs are so cheap it’s like candy, no?

…and narcissistic hipsters everywhere rejoice. Now your live can be complete. You can know with certainty what your friends are downloading so you can download the same songs and never, ever be different. Never form a coherent opinion of your own. Never develop your own tastes.

Social networking has just begun, and you must be pretty dense to think that new directions and creative combinations or new business ideas won’t be able to complete change the landscape.

Because as we know, these social networks are producing just so much useful, worthwhile content. The only people who care about what goes on on social networks are social network users and advertisers.

AOL bought Bebo for 800 million and then sold it for 10.

What Facebook is trying to do is to stop itself becoming irrelevant in the face of The Next Big Thing by locking in everything you do outside of Facebook too via Facebook Connect.

At some point we’re going to realise that these overvalued systems don’t actually *do* anything but massage egos.

I await the day when Facebook is as old hat as MySpace and just the mention of owning a Facebook profile produces a scoff of hipster disgust.

At some point we’re going to realise that these overvalued systems don’t actually *do* anything but massage egos.

Yeah. And stop firing teachers and nurses in order to give more money to traders, too…

The thing is, I think that once we get rid of the “social networking” nonsense, another kind of nonsense will get some momentum elsewhere in the world. Don’t know what it’s gonna be… Maybe cloud computing ?

Apple have announced a million Ping users after 3 million iTune 10 downloads. Not bad for less than a week. If the proportion of iTune users signing up to Ping stays at 30% then that’s over 35 million potential Ping users. Then it would very interesting.

A company decides to add another service layer to one of its product. But because that company is Apple (Which is obviously evil because it makes products you don’t like), this effort is a waste of time.

Needless to say because I don’t agree that this is a bad product, I must be a raving fanboi.

Whilst I have not tried Ping (I’m not an iTunes user) I must admit I’m happy that Last.fm will finally get some serious competition in the music-social-networking market and that will hopefully encourage them to improve their service. Ping’s next steps would probably be expanding the service to provide support for other media players. Then we will see the platform grow.

I think this article demonstrates very little perspective and exaggeratedly criticizes a platform that is giving its first steps in a market that really needs some challenge. Or maybe it’s a text written with sarcasm, and I completely missed the point. But I could blame that on the fact that english is not my native language.

Ping’s next steps would probably be expanding the service to provide support for other media players. Then we will see the platform grow.

That will never happen, unless it’s a desperate last-gasp before shuttering the service completely. Interoperability is a one-way street with Apple: they’re all for their own ability to interoperate with others, but when someone tries to interopate with their software? Just look at the hissy fit Apple through when Palm let WebOS sync with iTunes.

That’s the fundamental difference between Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft is smart enough to realize that you have to be accommodating when you’re the little guy; then when you’re king of the hill, THAT’s when you can take the “our way or the highway approach”. But Apple always behaves as if they’re the unchallenged 500lb gorilla, even when they’re just an insignificant bit-player (and as Apple history shows, that’s a great way to remain a bit-player).

Enter Ping, a me-too attempt that brings nothing new to an already crowded market, while being handicapped by software/platform lock-in restrictions that don’t exist with any other social network. Apple should just drop the pretense and officially change their name to “AOL”.

…even when they’re just an insignificant bit-player (and as Apple history shows, that’s a great way to remain a bit-player).

A bit player says you yet the market continually follows and copies what they do. Even when they don’t pioneer a technology they make it attractive so others follow suit. And as has been stated by many people on previous occasions Apple’s business model wouldn’t work if they were too big, it’s just not sustainable, so their strategies are aligned with their business model. You, and others, mightn’t like that, but that’s their choice, just as Microsoft’s model, that I don’t like, is their choice.

Ping is not just about music, and the market won’t just be iTunes users. All of the iOS devices can or will be able to take advantage of it. If I was to look at how my teenage daughter and her social group use their computers and / or iOS devices – a big percentage of them have some form of iOS device – they always have music or vids playing while they’re chatting away, posting comments, or playing games. Many of them often use lyrics from songs as their status message, so they are into their music and love to share what they are listening to, and make comments about it, so music is a good testing ground, a starting point.

Whether Ping works or not remains to be seen, but Apple’s plans for it will be a lot bigger than this initial foray.